Portfolio Identities

This topic contains 5 replies, has 5 voices, and was last updated by  astrittm 3 years ago.

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  • October 15, 2012 at 6:58 pm #365

    cdvick
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    This week we’re reading chapter 2 of Portfolios for Technical and Professional Communicators. The focus of the chapter is on the identities of people in the workplace, and how those identities can be used to shape a portfolio. I thought the chapter was pretty interesting. It gave me a sense of why it’s important to evaluate yourself – doing so enables us to see what our strengths and weaknesses are. Once those things are realized, you can lay out what you’re comfortable with and figure out which things need to be improved.

    Highlighting strengths is a key purpose of portfolios. It’s important to improve oneself so that those things that were once weaknesses become strengths, ultimately giving us the ability to include more information in our portfolios. Portfolios are representations of ourselves, and the more things we have in them the more marketable we become for potential employers. In your internships, are there things that you feel like you’ve improved a lot on? Or have there been situations where you surprised yourself with how you handled them?

    As an example to the latter question, I tend to switch focus between projects a lot depending on what my supervisor wants. I’ve found that I can be pretty flexible with the work for this internship by dropping everything on one project and then picking up on another. Have there been similar situations for you guys where you learned something about yourself? The reading for this week explains that our identities should be reflected in our portfolios. Our strengths and weaknesses, as well as what we learn about ourselves through our jobs, all help shape our identity.

    The reading also says that audience is an important factor when creating a portfolio. I thought the different people the book used as example cases were pretty interesting. The example of Michel, on page 27, talks about taking a more conservative approach in her portfolio because of the type of job she was pursuing (government work). Are you guys interested in any jobs that might require something similar? I have to admit that I don’t have a great idea of what I want to do after I graduate, but my work at OISS has been really helpful by showing me some of the things I’m capable of as well as what I’m interested in. If I would pursue a job that dealt with immigration, I guess I’d try and highlight my knowledge of the visa process. Do you see yourself doing something similar to your internships in the future? What kinds of things would you do in your portfolio to make yourself more attractive for future employers?

    October 18, 2012 at 12:55 pm #366

    ncarpini
    Author

    What I thought was most interesting about this chapter in PTPC was their slight focus on online personality tests. I think those things are so interesting, and it is true that they give you a sense of who you really are as a person and as a professional. When I took the Myers-Briggs, I got INTJ. I never realized I was an introvert until it told me I was, and after I saw my results, everything started to make perfect sense to me! Not before I had an identity crisis, though.

    As for my internship, I think it’s helped me to improve my time management skills a lot! Usually, I would use my free time at the Writing Center for homework, but this semester I’ve had to come in early and stay later in order to get a sufficient amount of hours in per week. Thankfully, I haven’t had that much homework in my other classes, so I haven’t had much to juggle on top of internship work, but I still feel as though my time management skills have improved significantly.

    My internship has also taught me that I really need variety in my work or else I’ll get bored. I flip-flopped between a few different projects, and it definitely helped me stay on top of things. When I was on a particular project for a long time, I really lost all effort and needed to change my focus before I completely wasted my time doing nothing.

    I think I want my portfolio to focus on my creativity as well as my broad-range of skills in professional writing/editing. My dream job is to be an editor of a literary magazine, which is the perfect mix of professional/technical and creative/artistic. I also really love the idea of potentially starting a writing center at a university/college that doesn’t have one yet. I would be able to bring what I’m doing in my internship here to where ever I would go in the future.

    October 18, 2012 at 5:19 pm #367

    cdvick
    Author

    I feel the same way about having variety at work. After a while it becomes hard to focus on one project at a time, and having projects that require different types of writing helps keep things interesting. Sometimes an idea will come to me for a project while I’m working on something entirely different. Learning better time management skills has also been big for me too, although I think there’s still a lot of room for improvement.

    I always liked the idea of being an editor, although I couldn’t say what kind of magazine I would want to be an editor for. Perhaps one day I’ll be able to decide on something career related. It sounds like your internship has been really relevant to what you want to do though, and starting a writing center at another university would be really awesome too – your experience with the writing center here at WVU would translate over really well at another university.

    October 19, 2012 at 12:06 am #368

    MikeSecret
    Author

    I also thought the reading was interesting. It was a bit of a change of pace from the previous reading as it focused more on our work instead of the office environment. Considering how many new things were thrown at me at the state of my internship, I would like to think that I have improved greatly in my work and am excited about showing it in my portfolio. Another factor in what I put in my portfolio is the range of work I have been doing. I also have many different tasks and often have to switch projects throughout the day to get the feeling that I’ve made sufficient progress towards all of them. As I mentioned in one of my blog posts, it helps to switch off just to keep the writing fresh and your focus from wandering off.

    I admit, I never thought about the audience of my portfolio. I had always wanted to go to law school and become a lawyer, so I would probably put together a very conservative and formal portfolio. However, I have begun to have second thoughts about my future and really doubting my desire to go to law school. I’m glad I’m getting a PWE degree that is so flexible in terms of jobs it attracts, because I may be needing it.

    October 19, 2012 at 4:13 pm #369

    Tburch
    Subscriber

    I think that when I am considering what I am going to put in my portfolio, I am going to look at it the same way I look at the audience for my internship and for my audience in what I hope to do when  I graduate.  I want my portfolio to show my range. I have some fairly creative work in regards to advertising and some of my design work. I also have some professional documents and some editing.  I hope to go into advertising/marketing in the future, so I want my portfolio to have a larger focus on my use of my PWE skills in the advertising work that I have done.

    Usually when I make portfolios I just pick things that I had A’s on, and what went best with the guidelines for the portfolio. However this time , I am going to try to make my portfolio an excellent representation of my internship, and make it functional for use after I graduate.  I really want to exhibit that I have utilized so many PWE skills, as well as skills I have learned in my advertising classes. I personally love portfolio classes. I would much rather throw together a huge portfolio and have a chance to perfect my work, than take a huge exam.   I want my portfolio to show how my work will probably always be…a mixture of utility and creativity.

    October 19, 2012 at 4:17 pm #370

    astrittm
    Author

    I agree with you Mike, this was a nice change of pace from what we have read over the beginning of the semester. I also agree with you in regards to the fact that I sometimes forget to think about who my audience is. I’m constantly having to remind myself that the portfolio has an audience I am targeting. I’ve been thinking of factors like social media, blogging, online article writing because these are all things I want to do but have to some how connect with so that I touch on all of these topics. I want my portfolio to be versatile, because the PWE concentration has shown me time and again that it has many faces. The versatility of the major is what drew me to it.

    The part about establishing a professional identity from the readings really stuck out to me. The past few weeks, I’ve really brainstorming a lot to try and figure out  what I want to do with my portfolio. Portfolios for Technical and Professional Communicators says, “It gives you the opportunity to control the professional integrity you want to create for yourself in light of your needs, skills. and personal expectations” in regards to creating a portfolio (19). This portfolio will allow me to present myself in a way a resume can’t. It will expand on the goals I want to achieve and the path I want to take. It will specifically describe what I have done, what I will do, and what I want to do. This chapter really helped me hone in on the identity of my portfolio and gave me better direction as to where I want to go with it.

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